There has been a wave of searches and arrests of investigative journalists in Istanbul and Ankara in connection with a probe into an alleged anti-government plot. Journalists who have helped to shed light on this case are being made to pay for the tension between the government and the secularist and ultra-nationalist opposition, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF).
“We deplore the repeated use of the charge of ‘membership of a terrorist organisation’ to go after reporters who are just doing their work at a difficult time of political and ideological rivalry,” RSF reacted. “After a period of reduced tension, we are disturbed to see renewed heavy-handed treatment of journalists who reported facts that do not suit the government.”
Members of the Istanbul anti-terrorist police searched the homes of 11 people Thursday morning on a warrant issued by Zekeriya Oz, the prosecutor handling the investigation into the alleged “Ergenekon” conspiracy by retired military officers and other senior figures who suspect the AKP government of harbouring Islamist tendencies. During the raids, computers, notebooks and papers were seized and computer hard-disks were copied in flagrant violation of the confidentiality of journalists’ sources.
One of the journalists arrested in the raids, which also targeted opposition writers and university academics, was Sait Kilic of Oda TV, a news website that is critical of the government. Three of the site’s most senior journalists have been detained since February 18 in connection with the Ergenekon investigation.
Journalists Ahmet Sik and Nedim Sener were also among Thursday's detainees. A teacher at Istanbul’s Bilgi university and contributor to newspapers such as Milliyet, Cumhuriyet and Bianet, Sik has written several books about the Ergenekon case and is currently working on a report about alleged infiltration of the police by the Islamist sect Gülen.
Sener, who reports for the liberal daily Milliyet, has been threatened and prosecuted over a book he wrote about the 2007 murder of Turkish-Armenian newspaper editor Hrant Dink. The International Press Institute named him World Press Freedom Hero last year.
The latest raids have caused an outcry in Turkey and abroad. In an unprecedented development that underlines the gravity of the case, a demonstration is being organised Friday in Istanbul’s Taksim Square by the Freedom for Journalists Platform, which groups 24 Turkish journalists’ organisations.
RSF called for the immediate and unconditional release of the detained journalists in accordance with international law.
